Biostatistics

EXERCISES 255
7.4.1 Ellen Davis Jones (A-15) studied the effects of reminiscence therapy for older women with
depression. She studied 15 women 60 years or older residing for 3 months or longer in an assisted
living long-term care facility. For this study, depression was measured by the Geriatric Depression
Scale (GDS). Higher scores indicate more severe depression symptoms. The participants received
reminiscence therapy for long-term care, which uses family photographs, scrapbooks, and personal
memorabilia to stimulate memory and conversation among group members. Pre-treatment and posttreatment
depression scores are given in the following table. Can we conclude, based on these data,
that subjects who participate in reminiscence therapy experience, on average, a decline in GDS
depression scores? Let a ¼ :01.
Pre–GDS: 12 10 16 2 12 18 11 16 16 10 14 21 9 19 20
Post–GDS: 11 10 11 3 9 13 8 14 16 10 12 22 9 16 18
Source: Data provided courtesy of Ellen Davis Jones, N.D., R.N., FNP-C.
7.4.2 Beney et al. (A-16) evaluated the effect of telephone follow-up on the physical well-being dimension
of health-related quality of life in patients with cancer. One of the main outcome variables was
measured by the physical well-being subscale of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy
Scale-General (FACT-G). A higher score indicates higher physical well-being. The following table
shows the baseline FACT-G score and the follow-up score to evaluate the physical well-being during
the 7 days after discharge from hospital to home for 66 patients who received a phone call 48–72
hours after discharge that gave patients the opportunity to discuss medications, problems, and advice.
Is there sufficient evidence to indicate that quality of physical well-being significantly decreases in
the first week of discharge among patients who receive a phone call? Let a ¼ :05.
Subject
Baseline
FACT-G
Follow-up
FACT-G
Subject
Baseline
FACT-G
Follow-up
FACT-G
1 16 19 34 25 14
2 26 19 35 21 17
3 13 9 36 14 22
4 20 23 37 23 22
5 22 25 38 19 16
6 21 20 39 19 15
7 20 10 40 18 23
8 15 20 41 20 21
9 25 22 42 18 11
10 20 18 43 22 22
11 11 6 44 7 17
12 22 21 45 23 9
13 18 17 46 19 16
14 21 13 47 17 16
15 25 25 48 22 20
16 17 21 49 19 23
17 26 22 50 5 17
18 18 22 51 22 17
19 7 9 52 12 6
20 25 24 53 19 19
21 22 15 54 17 20
22 15 9 55 7 6
(Continued )